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Canada can’t turn its back on Afghanistan

As the Canadian mission in Afghanistan ends, our commitment to the country must not.

After a ceremonial flag-lowering in Kabul on March 12, 2014, the last Canadians involved in the NATO training mission left Afghanistan. (Mcpl Patrick Blanchard / EPA)

By Trevor GreeneMellissa Fung

Thu., March 13, 2014

After largely ignoring Afghanistan since Canada ended its combat mission in the country in 2011, Canadian reporters are finally back this week, ostensibly for a photo op — the official end of the country’s mission there.

The ceremonial flag-lowering in Kabul on Wednesday comes a few weeks before Afghans head to the polls in what will be a test of everything Canada and its NATO allies have accomplished there in the last 12 years.

Canada’s time in Kandahar was a long time ago now. Our memories of a war hard-fought in the hot desert are — for most Canadians — flashbacks to a time when we were once again a nation at war: yellow ribbons pinned to cars and lapels, Red Fridays to rally the troops and the public’s flagging enthusiasm, solemn soliloquies over flag-draped coffins that have come off the back ramp of a Hercules.

And now, with the flag lowered and the small contingent of training troops returning home, Canadians can look back and say — it’s finally over. Mission complete.

Only it’s not. When Canada decided to join NATO’s effort there, we went in with a mission to bring stability and security so that institutions like schools and courts can take root, so that girls can go to school, so that women can go to work, so that the last vestiges of years of repressive Taliban rule would be obliterated from society.

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As we leave, the security situation is steadily starting to deteriorate. The attack on a Lebanese restaurant in Wazir Akbar Khan — one of the more secure areas populated by foreigners in Kabul — this past January was a parting shot. It was the Taliban’s message to the West: leave now, so we can come back with a vengeance. What we risk by turning our back now is everything we fought so hard to achieve.

It’s easy to forget some of the impressive gains that have been made over the last decade.

Operation Attention, our contribution to the NATO mission to train the Afghan National Army and the national police has been largely viewed as a success. Last summer the ANA conducted thousands of combat patrols with international advisers present for only about 15 per cent. The commander of NATO forces, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, suggested on Wednesday to the U.S. Congress that the U.S. keep some troops in-country, with the number contingent on the ANA’s performance in this year’s fighting season. Dunford said the last few years of fighting had reversed the Taliban’s momentum, pushed insurgents out of population centres and made them less of a threat to the Afghan government.

Crucially, there are now 10 million children in school — 40 per cent of whom are girls, compared to just 700,000 in 2001, almost all of whom were boys. Nearly 5,000 new school buildings have been built since 2002, and the number of teachers has increased to 200,000. More than a quarter of a million women have enrolled in literacy classes and can now read and write. Afghan women are finding their voice: the number of female parliamentarians has grown over the years and Afghanistan’s current ambassador to Norway is female.

All of this has been accomplished with a strong commitment from Canada in terms of aid. In 2008, at the height of our military involvement, Afghanistan was the largest recipient of Canadian aid dollars — $345 million. In 2013, it was less than half that. Going forward, it’s clear our government won’t be eager to commit any more.

Some will argue that we have sacrificed enough. The lives of 158 soldiers — the highest per capita of all NATO forces deployed to Afghanistan — one diplomat, two aid workers and one journalist. And the lives of thousands of others who have come home, damaged and debilitated.

But will all that have been for nothing if we don’t find a way to keep our commitment to the Afghan people and to sustain all the gains that have been made? If Canada turns its back on Afghanistan now, it risks leaving a dubious legacy: of allowing all the gains we have fostered at great cost to be rolled back, and leaving a generation of Afghans — notably girls and women — without the support they need to find their own way forward in the uncertainty to come.

Capt. Trevor Greene (ret’d) served in the Seaforth Highlanders and sustained severe injuries in Afghanistan. Mellissa Fung is a journalist with the CBC.

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